Obama Team Mulls Aims Of Somali Extremists

The group has become the strongest force inside Somalia, holding a large swath of territory in the south and contesting the current government's hold on power.

Mudd compared al-Shabab to other nationalistic movements in places such as Chechnya and Bosnia that have drawn fighters from abroad. Foreign recruits raise the profile of the local militant groups and make it appear as though they are part of a broader struggle, Mudd said. "They're accepting non-Somali fighters. . . . I think it adds to their credibility. It's a public relations bonanza for them."

Some of the widespread anti-Ethiopia feeling in Somalia redounded on the United States. "Certainly the Ethiopians weren't very popular in Somalia, and the perception that anybody was helping them wasn't popular there," Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last month.

The Bush administration asserted that some of al-Shabab's original leaders were responsible for the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and maintained ties to al-Qaeda. Last year, it added the group to its list of terrorist organizations. "There are indications that al-Qaeda has provided support for training activity" in the camps, said a U.S. counterterrorism official.

American officials do not discount the threat of an attack on the United States or Europe. "To the extent that the al-Shabab leadership talks to the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan," the counterterrorism official said, "if that occurs with increasing frequency, then our concerns will grow even stronger."

For the moment, however, U.S. officials are more concerned about attacks in Somalia and in the region. "We're talking about . . . U.S. and Western interests, as well as potential attacks against other countries in Africa."

Similar debates over how to deal with perceived threats in countries where the United States is not at war occurred during the Bush administration, which on several occasions canceled strikes because of insufficient evidence or concern about inflaming the local population and making a politically explosive situation worse. The newness of the Obama administration, one senior military official, has slowed the decision process even more.

They are "walking slowly," the official said, "and for the players with continuity, the frustration continues to grow."

But many on the national security team insist that it is their caution and willingness to consider all aspects of the situation that differentiate them from the overly aggressive posture of the Bush administration that they say exacerbated the terrorist threat.